Preview

Analysis Of Police Brutality: Beatdown By The Badge

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1045 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of Police Brutality: Beatdown By The Badge
Brandon Nelson
12/5/2014
EN 11011
Essay 3
Beatdown by the Badge.

Police brutality has been an issue in America now for quite some time. Recently, it seems to have hit crisis proportions. There are protests popping up in cities all across the country. Why is police brutality now in the national spotlight and on the tips of most Americans tongues? Due to the advancement of technology the last 15 years or so, people now have the ability on their phone to video record and upload to the internet, police officers that abuse their authority while making an arrest. There are many incidents of brutality that have gone viral. Gone are the days of your Sheriff Andy Dalton and his Deputy Barney Fife, friendly cops whose duty it is to serve and protect.
…show more content…
As stated on the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) website, “every day, law enforcement officers face danger while carrying out their responsibilities. When dealing with a dangerous-or unpredictable-situation, police officers usually have very little time to access it and determine the proper response.” Proper training techniques about how to access and handle situations teach officers how to implement use of force. “The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in its study, Police Use of Force in America 2001, defined use of force as ‘the amount of effort required by the police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject.’” There are many instances of abuse of how the use of force protocol is abused by an officer and very little done about …show more content…
The video shows the officer repeatedly punching the girl as her mother begging the officer to stop. The young girl was “screaming that she couldn’t breathe as her mother attempted to explain to the officers that she has mental problems as well as asthma.”(Rules) On Santiago’s Facebook page he stated that one officer explained that the arresting officer “acted correctly” and “if she needed to, she could have shot her dead.” That is pretty disturbing to hear considering the 15 year old girl was unarmed.
A particularly disturbing case is reported by the NY Daily News, in which Akai Gurley, 28, was “dying in a darkened stairwell at a Brooklyn housing development, the cop who fired the fatal bullet was texting his union representative.” (Parascandola) It’s reported that the officers were incommunicado for six and a half minutes. When the officers “finally resurfaced on the radio, they reported an accidental

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The cause of police brutality is rooted back to the antebellum slavery era. For the past several centuries, there has always been high tension between blacks and whites. This tension towards one another came from the antebellum era. In the antebellum era, it was common for blacks to be enslaved by whites. White patrollers, or law enforcement, were on guard for blacks and capture any fugitives that attempted to escape from their owner. The patrollers often commit brutal punishments towards the blacks such as beating, lynching, and multination. Patrollers was left unpunished and their despicable actions quickly forgotten. In the book Police Brutality An Anthropology, it addresses:…

    • 225 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Robert E. Worden's Unfair

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Seeing this happening begins a collective fear of our law enforcement which can lead to mistrust and separation of hope. According to an L.A. Times article, in Inglewood, a city located inside of Los Angeles County, California, residents were beginning to get tired of treatment by police and began to call and complain to the U.S. Department of Justice in order to demand reform. A Times investigation found that Inglewood officers repeatedly resorted to physical or deadly force against unarmed suspects (Kim et al.). When further investigation was demanded and started, they noticed that “The agency's rules on using deadly force are vague and inconsistent with U.S. Supreme Court guidelines” (Kim et al.). This demonstrates that there is a clear correlation between outdated reforms and the excessive use of force.…

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    With times changing and individuals obtaining more powerful mobile, almost every move a person makes can be recorded or looked back on in some sort of way. With this great power, comes great scrutiny for not only everyday individuals, but for the individuals that protect us day in and day out. Law enforcement has suffered more scrutiny, and has obtained a substantial amount of media coverage over the past few years. This coverage has not been positive, and often highlights the mistakes, and aggressive actions taken by the officers of the law. With the framing of police officers changing from being outstanding citizens who uphold the law, to vicious animals who abuse their power, one begins to question the reasoning for all the brutality.…

    • 1999 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This is just one of the many recent examples of police brutality in the media. Thanks to the progression of technology, more and more people are able to capture and speak out against instances of injustice. However, most victims of police brutality have to rely entirely on a video someone took, or footage from police body cameras,…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Police brutality is the unlawful use of power, act or authority by the policepersons on the civilians (Russell-Brown 2009). Police brutality is an unfortunate corollary of the dangerous job of protecting society from its worst citizens, an anomaly attributable to the characteristic of individual police officers and the police department (Holmes and Smith, 2008). The actions can be employed with either the use of firearms, other lethal and non-lethal weapons or the improper use of holds or restraining techniques (Belur, 2010). In the United States, the brutality by police officers has been passed on from the time memorial. Police have used forceful methods in trying…

    • 3484 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    Police officers who participated in using excessive force, many times did not face any consequences, and when they did, their charges were very minimal. In his article titled, “Must We Live With Police Brutality,” David Jones uses insight from the Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, Sheldon Leffler. Leffler states, that “’the department has perpetuated a police culture in which officers may be emboldened to conduct themselves in a manner that runs contrary to ... the law.’” (Jones 9). Police officers are supposed to be trusted authority figures that help protect people and enforce laws, instead of hurting people and acting as if they are above the law. Police officers, however, were not the ones who were protecting themselves from the consequences. It was those who oversaw the police departments and the local government who over protected these police officers. In the case mentioned above of the Haitian immigrant who fell victim of police brutality, the mayor of New York City, at the time, as well as the police commissioner turned a blind eye to how often police were using excessive force and unneeded brutality. Jones continues to explain how higher ups in the government and police force seemed to encourage officers to release anger and hate onto people who break the law (Jones 9). This attitude gives the idea that using force and viciousness is necessary to keep crime rates down, which is not…

    • 1976 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The biggest issue that is arising in America today within police agencies is police brutality. “Police brutality is the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians” (The Law dictionary). Throughout this paper police brutality is discussed an analyzed to conclude its causes and effects. In order to conduct this paper numerous online articles have been examined to produce statistics on this sensitive topic. These articles are written by creditable sources specifically detailing police misconduct. Although there are laws to help eliminate unlawful actions by law enforcement, but with power some of those laws are over look when it comes down to those in society who have a badges behind their…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    You’ve heard about it, read about it, and maybe even seen live footage on the news. What is it? Living in the United States, a lot of cases in today’s society are Police Brutality. Police Brutality remains the most critical and divisive human rights violation in the United States of America. We are supposed to trust the police to protect us, not take advantage and abuse the power, we, the people, have invested in them. The immoderate use of police brutality continues because police don’t know how to de-escalate, most cops face no disciplinary threats, and because there are no clear policies on using force. This makes it feasible for officers who do commit brutality and human rights violations to abscond their punishment and repeat their offences.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Police brutality has been witnessed recently over the years in America. The topic has been controversial among communities that have seen brutality in front of them. I understand that police officers face many threatening situations everyday forcing them to make split second decisions and to expect the worst and hope for the best. Police officers are allowed and have the power to take any citizens rights away. One…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Police brutality is the excessive use of violence against people in different areas of the United States by police. Police brutality is something that is talked about a lot by different people: people of different races, genders, and age groups. This is a big problem that is happening in the United States and has been happening for a while now. There has been many issues of police brutality in the past few years. Police brutality issues seem to happen the most within the African American community because there seems to be more deaths under police surveillance in the African American community. There has also been a number of people in the African American community that have been victims of police brutality such as Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and many others. According to statistics…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Police Department was established to control order and promote good conduct for the civilians in their community. Since the beginning, the police department has been scrutinizing for taking the law into their own hand to restore order. In most cases the individuals affected by brutality is the minorities. Even though the people are happy with the police present in their community, one incident can change the way the community feels towards the Police. Consequently, the higher the crime rate in your community, the likely hood you will suffer from police brutality. Studies have shown that police brutality is and will be a part of your community. In some cases, the officer or officers will be acquitted of the charges. That message is hard to take in when you are the community and the police should be on your side. There will be that one officer that cannot control his or hers emotions, and take the law into their own hands to solve the issue and most likely not get reprimanded for it.…

    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Police Brutality History

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police brutality is a phenomenon that has stood the test of time and it is the culprit to igniting many passionate debates across the United States. The term "police brutality" was in use in the United States as early as 1872, when the Chicago Tribune reported on the beating of a civilian under arrest at the Harrison Street Police Station (1872), and more recently when the CBS news reported that an officer was caught on video violently taking down a citizen (2017). The police have had an extensive history of abusing their powers. The topic of police brutality stays at the forefront of American public debate due to officers repeatedly using more force than necessary. However, with contemporary advancements in independent civilian review boards,…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Essay On Police Brutality

    • 2620 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Police Brutality In the United States is a major topic, it is mentioned in National News on…

    • 2620 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Police Brutality

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Whether or not a person believes police brutality is a serious problem, it must be stopped. In some cases, where more force is needed than in others, it is still there. Even in areas where police and the use of excessive force is not a huge problem, it must be decreased by both the police and the public. Finally, there needs to be rules making sure that this never happens…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay 2

    • 1110 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Police Brutality has become a serious topic in today’s time being that every time you turn on the TV you see them mention another act of violence from the police and since that were in 2015, cellphone cameras are being used to capture every single second of it, so it won’t become he say, she say evidence. According to Salem Press Encyclopedia, police brutality is abuses of authority that amount to serious and divisive human rights violations involving the excessive use of force that may occur in the apprehension or retention of civilians. Police brutality has become the issue of today’s time with civilians of this country; recent examples of police brutality are Eric Garner, Freddie gray, Sean Bell and it’s sad that’s there even more incidents. Police has been advised that some shootings are unjustified and wrong but they find a loophole, finding the victim to be wrong instead of the police officer. Most of the time it has been minorities that have been the victim in these incidents, and that is why police and minority groups have been having major conflicts that effects the country. I agree with this article that police brutality is a major issue and I believe that it’s wrong and need to be put to an end.…

    • 1110 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays